Abstract

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Title:: Language Disorders of Children with Autism Viewed from thePerspectives of Chomsky and Foucault’s Theories

Abstract:: Autism is characterized by language disorders，which are closely related to deficiency in socialskills and interpersonal communication. Concerning language acquisition，Chomsky argues that the reasonwhy children can acquire their mother tongue rapidly with great uniformity is that they are born with the sameinitial state of human brain，which is termed universal grammar in his theory. The universal grammar is theessential part of human nature. Because of its strong explanatory adequacy，Chomsky’s theory has naturallybecome one of the mainstream theories in psychology of language. Though failing to take children with autismas his theoretical object，Chomsky holds that human beings differ from animals in nature even though theycannot speak due to the failure of their language organ. Therefore，a natural inference is that children withautism cannot be segregated as“ others” biologically different from normal children. Differing from Chomsky，Foucault argues that there is no such thing as universal human nature. His archeological examination of thehistory of madness，however，reveals that autism is just a notion constructed by power/discourse and thuschildren with autism cannot be banished as“ others” socially different from normal children. Though fromdifferent perspectives，the two great theorists both insist directly or indirectly that children with autism enjoythe same right to life and development as normal children.